School District Hires Public-relations Adviser To Make Over Image

Officials Want To Rebuild A Reputation That Has Been Tarnished By Events In Recent Years.

August 21, 2002|By Dave Weber, Sentinel Staff Writer

TAVARES -- Superintendent Pam Saylor has hired a public-relations consultant to put a glossy image on the Lake County school system, which has been rocked by constant bickering, near bankruptcy and even a student's murder in recent years.

Saylor and School Board members say they are tired of the bad publicity and want a total makeover for the school district. Image is important, Saylor said.

"We want more people involved and more people believing in us," Saylor said. "We want a common feeling that we are all in this together."

To reach those goals, the school system may not change so much what it does, but how it is perceived. The public-relations specialist outlined first steps Tuesday.

David Voss, a Tampa consultant, told Saylor and the School Board that they can achieve a new image by taking more control of what is said about the schools. A combination of missed opportunities and simple lack of awareness on how to guide their image has tarnished their look, Voss said.

"Negative impressions of the school system are surprisingly not from the media, but from ourselves," Voss said.

Voss, who served as press aide to former Gov. Bob Graham and former Education Commissioner Betty Castor, said the school system's image can be changed. Saylor paid him $9,775 for initial work this summer, including interviews with samplings of residents from around the county.

Voss suggested a makeover that starts with a literacy campaign this fall and capitalizes on national and state reading drives for elementary-school children. "Just Read, Lake," which mimics Gov. Jeb Bush's "Just Read, Florida" campaign, could "piggyback" on the publicity surrounding the larger state and national reading pushes, he said.

Little by little, the school system could display its successes to the public, Voss said. He suggested that officials set up their own network of communicators to talk up the school system -- starting with teachers.

Extensive use of e-mail to parents, community leaders and others, coupled with a greatly expanded school district Internet page, would give the district more news outlets, Voss said.

Officials acknowledge that communication is not their forte.

"This is one of the weakest areas for the board and administration of anything we do," School Board Chairman Gerald Smith said.

School district officials complain that "good news" often has been ignored or buried by a slew of events that emphasize negative aspects of the school system.

Those overwhelming events have occurred often in recent years, school officials concede.

Bickering among School Board members and the superintendent became a tradition in Lake, heightened a few years ago when conservative Christians held a majority of School Board seats. Lake County gained an international reputation -- and a good deal of ridicule -- when that majority put forth the `America First' policy, proclaiming the superiority of American culture. Radio talk-show hosts had a ball, and newspapers as far away as Tokyo carried the story.

Soon after, a 15-year-old shot and killed a 13-year-old classmate at Tavares Middle School. It was among the first of the rash of campus shootings that rocked the nation in the mid-to-late 1990s and placed Lake schools in an unfavorable spotlight once more. A state report a year later showing the incidence of school violence higher in Lake than anywhere else in Florida added to the burden.

Then the district moved into a four-year spiral of overspending, teacher cuts and near-bankruptcy under former Superintendent Jerry Smith.

But it is time to unload the baggage, Voss and school officials agreed.

Saylor and the board have spent the past two years rebuilding school finances, and academic progress in the schools is evident, too, they said. Lake County had no `D' or `F' schools when the state handed out its annual letter grades for the schools in June.

Last November, voters also approved a 1 cent sales tax increase that will in part pay for school construction.

Within a few weeks, Saylor is expected to ask the School Board to approve a policy that outlines plans to improve the school district's image. Details of how to make the plan work, including what it will cost, will follow.